


The Blight

by fiirofa



Series: Skyey Macabre Byzantine Tactics [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Lunar Blight, Masquerade, Military, Near Future, Science Fiction, Skyey Macabre Byzantine Tactics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2019-03-05 10:37:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13386057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiirofa/pseuds/fiirofa
Summary: An outbreak of an alien blight spreads throughout Africa.This is the "prologue" of Skyey Macabre Byzantine Tactics.





	1. Malachite

**Author's Note:**

> This is a lightly-edited repost of the original, starting at https://skyeymacabrebyzantinetactics.wordpress.com/2017/08/27/malachite-1.

**Dec 9, 2036 - north of Kemba, Central African Republic**

Malachite.  That was the word the section commander had been grasping for.  A rather dark green, with veins and splotches of a paler shade—it perfectly fit the… well, _thing_ confronting her section.

“ETA on official response?” she asked.

“None yet, Corp.”   _Corp_.  The voice was garbled beyond recognition through the hazmat suit’s radio, but if they were calling the commander by rank instead of call sign, the voice belonged to either Fryer or one of the new agents.  Fryer made more sense.

“And the locals?”  If that _had_ been a new guy, they likely had already forgotten about the village to the south.

“Curious as to why a bunch of Brits are here.  Otherwise, staying away.”  So they’d remembered, but it wasn’t Fryer: listening to the voice again, the agent was probably male.

“Samples collected?”  The commander began to drum her fingers on the green outgrowth in front of her.  No, the _malachite_ -looking pillar.  “Green” had the connotation of plant life, and this… biomass was certainly not a plant.

A few moments passed, and the new agent answered yet again: “I think Fireteam Bravo’s handling that, Corp.”  If nothing else, this rookie—whose identity _still_ couldn’t be matched —was taking point on comms.

“Fireteam Bravo, samples?” the section commander asked, impatience leaking into her tone.

Another long silence passed before an answer came.  “FTB here, all sample containers are full.  Sorry ’bout that, Orc.”  That was reassuring, if for no other reason than—wait, _Orc_?

“I’m Elf,” the commander said.  “Very funny.”  It wasn’t funny—just trite.  To be fair, though, they were a mostly-Welsh _combat_ section in the literal middle of Africa performing _biohazard_ first-response.  Nothing here was funny.

Elf began prodding the outgrowth again.  It felt vaguely like a mushroom—ah!   _Mushroom!_  That was the newbie’s call sign.  Probably.  Maybe.

“Response section, this is command.  Return immediately to transport; debrief in ten.”   _Finally._  The entire team wasn’t suited to this work —any excuse would do to get away from the alien fungus… carpet-thing.  That just-so-happened to look like copper ore.

* * *

On second thought, perhaps fighting the moon-mycelium _wasn’t_ such a bad fate.  Sure, it was unsettling, and by Murphy’s Law, it would probably kill the entire section, but at least there was a chance of survival.  In contrast, as Elf read the names of the people logged into the debriefing call, a far more certain end began to coalesce.  One that involved the phrases like “detonate supplied warhead” and “your sacrifice will be remembered,” among others.

Naturally, a representative of the section’s organization, STNR, was present for the debriefing.  Problem was, the representative wasn’t the local overseer, or even the Africa Overseer.  No, the lunar tumor required the attention of _the_ Chief Strategic Councilman of STNR.  Joining him were the Operational Commander of NATO’s WETCORP, the commander of the PLA’s Normalcy Corp, the head of AFPARCOM, and a smattering of minor groups like the “Kuroyama Group” that Elf didn’t recognize.  In short, well over half of the Occult Congress was listening in on her report.

Yeah, the world was _definitely_ about to end.

WETCORP decided to take point: “Well?  Is it from the lander?”  No formalities, no summaries—just how alarmed were these people?

Elf sighed.  “Field scans showed bits of charred ceramics embedded near the center of the biomass.  Combined with the location and trajectory of the ILB landing craft when it broke up, the preceding forest fire, and—”

“So it is?” the Operational Commander interrupted.

A moment passed before Elf answered.  “High confidence this is the green film the ILB crew found on their airlocks.”

Silence reigned as the assorted agency heads processed this.  STNR was the first to recover, though the councilman didn’t add much. “It’s an alien weed then?”

Was it a weed?  More like a fungus with some trace bits of moss spliced in.  “Well, the preliminary—err, _very_ preliminary field tests show results consistent with: carbon-based, DNA-containing, chitin-containing, minimal photosynthesis, mycelial struct —”

“We can see the test results, Corporal.”  Elf did her best to not scowl.  If they had the results already, why the _hell_ did she need to be here?  Were the leaders so shell-shocked they had to hear this from a person?  Why couldn’t the team just go back to Wales!?

As if having heard Elf’s thoughts—which he very-well might have, if certain rumors were true—the AFPARCOM chief began to wrap things up: “One last question.  Does this lunar… blight—does it burn?”

“We torched some with no issue.”  Ah—here comes the nuke order.

“Good,” AFPARCOM said.  “We’ve re-established contact with our biohazard division; they’ll be on-site within the half-hour.  Your agents are no longer needed here, Councilman.”  Wait…

“Right.  The nearest STNR quarantine site is in… Cairo.  Head there, Corporal.  Dismissed.”  No sooner had the Chief Strategic Councilman said those words than Elf was disconnected from the call.

No nuke order?  No gassing?  No death?  They’d done it—the section had survived!  Well, assuming that the malachite blight didn’t poison them somehow.  Still, a victory was a victory.

* * *

**3 hours later - STNR Cairo Base**

Field Agent Mushroom paced around his quarantine cell.   _Last chance —this wasn’t you? _ he thought to himself.

 _Perhaps in a very roundabout way,_ came the response.  As vague as always with _— Your doubt is leaking over to me. _

_Sorry,_ Mushroom thought.

 _Anyway, get the notepad and pencil over there._  Mushroom did so, and he immediately lost control of his arms.  They began to write down a conversation.

> STNR > Satellites found AFPARCOM’s team.  Finally.
> 
> WETCORP > Where?
> 
> STNR > Gambia.
> 
> WETCORP > How the hell—
> 
> KUROYAMA > I’ll get some diviners on it.

_Occult Congress is still meeting?_  Obviously, but it was —

 _Yep.  Five-minute delay, give or take.  Anyway, AFPARCOM’s comm net is still fucked._  Strange.  Corp —err, Elf had said that things seemed under control.

 _So that… blight still isn’t being handled?_ Mushroom asked.  The transcript continued.

> PLA > What are the nearest non-AFPARCOM teams?
> 
> STNR > We have a section an hour out, another 5 arriving soon after.
> 
> WETCORP > We’re a bit slower, but we’ll have 300 people there in two hours.

_Is that enough?_  The blighted area hadn’t been _too_ large when he was on-site.

 _Hell no!  Least not if this is what I think it is._  Right.  Murphy’s Law.

> PONTIC > Is there a reason we can’t send the local forces in?  This seems severe enough to warrant such action.
> 
> STNR > Last time we involved CAR and Congo, they actively made things worse.  In CAR’s case, a _lot_ worse.

_That was sabotage, not incompetence,_ the voice interjected.   _Can’t blame them for not knowing Geometers were pulling everyone’s strings._

> WETCORP > Regardless, as soon as it looks like a nuclear strike can’t fry the weed, we’ll tell the African Union to mobilize, even if we have to bypass AFPARCOM.
> 
> PONTIC > I appreciate the explanation.  On behalf of the entire Patriarchate of—
> 
> PLA > It is fine.

_Remind me who “PONTIC” is,_ requested Mushroom.

 _Pontic Orthodox Church.  Has a weird anti-memetic effect.  Minor faction, no forces, third-gen Congress member —no clue why they’re here._

> KUROYAMA > Diviners got back to us.  The blight expands by staggered underground runners.  It’s larger than we thought.
> 
> STNR > How large?
> 
> KUROYAMA > Enough that we need to mobilize the AU immediately.

The voice waited a moment before speaking: _Guess they’re skipping the nukes.  Good call: runners go too deep to be affected._

_So you’re certain now what this is?_

_Leng Confederacy bioweapon._  And Leng was?   _They used it on my… old body._  That meant nothing to Mushroom.   _Looks like accidental reverse-contamination, though —not an attack.  If I don’t intervene… _ The voice trailed off again, and Mushroom’s arms stopped transcribing.  As was typical by now, the voice would continue to keep its enigmatic past to itself.

The voice returned to finish its thought: _Well, I’m_ reasonably _certain Humanity won’t go extinct._


	2. Spread

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally got back to this!

**Dec 16, 2036**

“General Alves, are you available?”

The monotone voice seemed to be coming from Alves’s computer.   The computer, however, wasn’t turned on.  If it was somehow speaking, it stood to reason the Congress’s mysterious AI was to blame.  “Yes,” the general answered.  “This is WARP?”  He placed his ear to the computer’s microphone.

“Indeed.  There is a new update for you regarding the Lunar Blight.”  No luck—the sound was now coming from behind the computer.

Alves stood up, following the voice.  “Proceed,” he said.

“An agent on STNR’s initial response team has died of an unidentified illness.”  As if on cue, a cloud began to block the sun.  “Symptoms began to manifest twelve hours ago and were similar to those of a hemorrhagic fever.”

The general sat back down at his computer and frowned.  “Caused by the Blight?” he asked.

“That is likely, but has not been fully tested,” WARP responded.

“Right.  So the Blight comes with a… proximity illness.”  Alves’s frown deepened into a grimace.  “Does this mean hazmat suits aren’t useful?”

“The agent’s suit was found to be faulty.”  Alves sighed in relief.  “The current protective measures are still believed to be sufficient.”

“I see.”  The general paused for a moment.  “Any other news?”

“STNR’s facility in Lahore, Pakistan, is the new center of operations for Lunar Blight research by member organizations of the Occult Congress.”

Alves jolted up.  “Why Lahore?”  His voice had been raised.

WARP was silent for a rather long period of time, apparently searching for relevant information.  “The WETCORP Azores base was deemed to have insufficient facilities for—”

“No!” he shouted.  “I know why it was  _ moved _ !  Why isn’t it at another island site?”

The AI paused even longer.  “Further analysis has determined that the spores and runners by which the Lunar Blight spreads only manifest at a macroscopic scale on Earth.”

Alves slouched over and sighed.  “Understood.”  He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.  “Thank you, WARP.”

“You are welcome,” the AI replied.

After a few seconds, the general’s eyes shot back open.  “What was the dead agent’s name?”

“One moment please.”  WARP was silent for almost a minute, presumably declassifying the information.  “The deceased was Field Agent Gabriel Hopkins, call sign Mushroom.”

* * *

**Dec 21, 2036 - east of Mobaye, Central African Republic**

_ Think it’ll work? _ Combat Engineer Balogh Csaba thought to himself.

_ No _ , came the reply.

Csaba jumped off of the barrier and began to walk towards Mobaye.   _ Oh!  You’re talking to me again? _

_ I was never not talking, _ the voice said, indignant.   _ Just busy as hell.  Also, grieving for another node. _  Its tone had suddenly become somber.  Strange.  As far as Csaba was aware, Jakab— _ That’s not my name! _ it shouted—was incapable of feeling sad.

_ Anyway, why won’t it work? _  Hopefully reverting the subject would cheer Jakab—

_ Intent’s leaking over.  Focus, like I taught. _

_ Yeah, sure. _  Csaba stopped walking—he’d reached the next barrier.  He began to check the various sensors.

Jakab chimed in again:  _ Answering the question, this is just a fancy rhizome barrier. _

Normal, normal, normal… all readings normal.  On to the next barrier.   _ Exactly.  It’s not acidic; it can’t pierce metal; the spores are vestigial.  All we’ve seen are some really fast runners, otherwise just like bamboo.  Also, tangent: I looked up a botany text, and I’m pretty sure the runners  _ are _ rhizomes, not— _

_ It’s not a plant!  It’s a bioweapon.  Designed by smart people, to kill smart people.  En masse.  No way in hell it doesn’t have a contingency for sunken walls.  Hmm…  But it  _ was _ an accidental deployment.  Whole network might not be here, and Metizomu knows how old the cache was.  Barrier still wont stop it, but if they… _ Jakab faded into silence, consumed by his thoughts.  He had a tendency to do things like that.

Csaba was reaching the third barrier when an alarm began to sound.  It sounded around one hundred—no, lower.  Around ninety meters back, so at the first barrier.  He darted back, racking his mind.  What the hell could be wrong?  The pressure sensors had all been normal.  Besides, the runners had been hitting the barrier for a few hours already.  Maybe the Blight could ram things?  Maybe it  _ was _ acidic?

Csaba finally reached the terminal that was sounding the alarm.  A number of his fellow sappers crowded around him.  “Flow alert?” he said, repeating the notification.  It wasn’t one he’d been trained on.  “Anyone know it?”

“Water,” started one of the other engineers—Szabó, if Csaba remembered.  “I think that means running water.”  That made no sense, though.  The barriers weren’t built on aquifers, and there weren’t any caverns or holes either.  Sure, there was the river, but that was a solid kilometer south.

Suddenly, a hissing began to sound—probably a few kilometers east.  It was barely audible at first, but it quickly began to intensify.  A breeze accompanied the increase—perhaps air was being vented?  The hissing abruptly stopped, and a green cloud shot up from the horizon.

Jakab apparently noticed.   _ Ooh, _ he said.   _ Spore cloud.  Nice vestigial feature. _

* * *

**Mar 27, 2037**

“General Alves?  An urgent situation requires your attention.”

Alves’s eyes shot open, far faster than should have been possible for a man who had been dead asleep.

“WARP?  Repeat?” he groaned, dragging himself out of bed.

“An urgent situa—”

“Got it,” he said, glancing at his laptop.  It had already turned on, and WETCORP’s messaging system was loading.  “Who needs me?”

“Operational Commander Greene,” WARP replied.

Alves looked towards his closet, and then his bathroom.  He grimaced, shook his head, and turned away from both.  Grimacing again, he sat down at his desk and pulled his laptop over.

A few moments later, a message flashed across the laptop’s screen: “Secure Connection Established.”  Alves wiped his eyes just as a window popped up.  After another several seconds passed, the Operational Commander’s face replaced the loading wheel.

“Alves, thank you answering,” Greene croaked.  Almost immediately, he broke into a coughing fit.

“You alright, sir?” Alves asked, a look of confusion spreading across his face.

It took almost a minute for Greene to recover.  “No,” he finally got out, “But I’ll probably recover.”  Clearing his throat, Greene continued: “Lahore is infested.”

Alves’s eyes went wide.  “What?” he shouted.  “How?”

“Assassination attempt—probably on me.  Blew the base apart.”  A strained smile spread across Greene’s face.  “It never goes right, visiting a STNR base.”

Alves closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and clapped his face.  “Do we know who’s responsible?” he asked, recomposed.

“Probably WKP, but that’s not—” Greene began coughing again.  He spit out what looked to be a mixture of dust, soot, and phlegm.  “Ahem.  The only important matter right now is that there will be a new UN mission to contain this, and we need to restructure accordingly.”

Alves rolled his head back and began mouthing something to himself.  “You’re booting Ndidi?” he asked, returning his head to a normal position.

“General Uchechi’s out.  Don’t get me wrong, he’s handled the situation… passably, but we want better coordination with the OC.”

“And you want me to play a part in that?”  Alves buried his head in his hands.

“Yes.  So where do you prefer?”  Greene cleared his throat.  “Let me rephrase.  Generals Lu, Udar, Modhwadia, Aartheehan, and Parvizad are all going to India; Sanchez, Bertillon, Zerhouni, Nassar, and Gebhardt are going to Africa.  Which command do you want?”

* * *

**Apr 17, 2037 - Libreville Rear Base, Sahoué, Gabon**

_ Jakab? _

No response.

_ Hey, Jakab! _

Still nothing.  Prior to the Blight, Jakab being silent meant he was busy scheming.  Now, it probably meant he was grieving.

Csaba had always known other people… hosted Jakab, but he’d never been able to get an answer as to  _ how _ many.  As horrible as it was, Csaba  _ could _ use this to make a guess.  Each person— _ Node _ —that died seemed to cost Jakab a day.  Now, when Csaba’s grandmother had died, he’d been out of sorts for a day as well; Csaba guessed the same would have been true for his aunts, uncles, and closer cousins.  All told, he had around twenty such relatives.  Of course, Jakab, if he ever had been, wasn’t human anymore: his mind seemed more capable.  Csaba doubled the estimate to forty nodes prior to the Blight.

_ Thirty-six. _

Of course, that number begged a separate question.  Thirteen nodes had ostensibly died to the Blight’s proximity illness.  How was it that so many nodes were in the military?  It would make sense if the nodes were clustered in a single unit, but Jakab had indicated— _ When? _ —a random distribution.  Since infection— _ Not a disease! _ —required physical contact in the form of a prick, perhaps there was a much larger number of supporting nodes.  Or maybe there were a few well-traveled nodes dedicated to spreading Jakab.

_ You missed a possibility, _ Jakab noted.

_ What? _ Csaba asked.   _ Oh—welcome back.  All okay? _

_ No one died yet.  Just busy. _  That was… reassuring.  Probably.   _ You goofed an assumption: it’s not just stinging people.  A node’s child is also a node. _

_ I guess that makes sense. _  It really didn’t, but Csaba was too used to the detached voice in his head to be surprised.

_ Related: please have children.  Quickly. _  Jakab almost sounded nervous—surely that couldn’t be right.

_ Why? _

_ Past six hours, nine nodes, including  _ all  _ of my stingers, got a really bad hem fever.  Probably a new proximity illness. _  Nope—he’d read it correctly.  Jakab was cornered.

_ Christ.  What caused it? _ asked Csaba.

_ No clue. _

_ When’ll it show up here? _

_ No clue. _

_ Plan? _

_ Hope one of the kids has a stinger. _

How…?  Jakab always new what was going on.  The voice was paranoid beyond reason, and had contingencies for contingencies.  Had he really been so careless as to bring all of his nodes to the frontline?  Had he truly not prepared for a more virulent proximity illness?  Something else had to be in play—

No.  That didn’t matter right now.  Csaba trusted Jakab; the immediate goal was to improve the plan.   _ What are the odds of that happening? _

_ Including the other nodes? Bad. _

Well, fuck.

* * *

**May 5, 2037 - Khyber Wall Outer Barrier, Landi Kotal, Pakistan**

Alves forced his face into a smile.  He tried and failed to keep his eyes open as hundreds of cameras flashed at once.  Before the firing squad of photographers could notice that the shot had been botched, Alves turned and fled, relaxing his face to its normal, exhausted frown.

As he scurried up to the innermost barrier of the Khyber Wall, he caught sight of Generals Modhwadia and Lu.  The two of them were seated together, smiling (much more naturally than Alves had) as assorted news outlets snapped photos.

“Waste of time,” Alves grumbled.

“General,” his headset said, "Please be advised that you are in range of microphones."

“Thank you, WARP.”  He sighed, wiped the fog of his glasses, and stared intently at the two generals.  Neither noticed.  “Please relay a message to Modhwadia and Lu: ‘impatient lack time.’”

\---

“Don't care for the media?” asked Modhwadia.  His smile had mostly dropped away, though his expression remained cheerful.

“No.”

“You could try to hide it better,” Lu noted.  In contrast, his face had shifted into an outright scowl—almost as if he were offended.

“Doesn’t matter,” Alves snapped.  He winced at the sound of his voice.  Sighing, he began: “Kuroyama's diviners think there's a gestalt active in one of our Blight missions."

Lu snapped to attention.  “How many aspects?” he asked.  He started to ask another—

Alves raised his hand.  “It’s just one aspect, under twelve bodies.”  He swallowed, and then continued: “It’s also compromised STNR’s network.”

“Do we know how?”  Lu had practically shouted the question.  He stood up and began pacing around the room.

“No,” Alves answered.  “Just that it listened in on CSC meetings, and thus probably Congress meetings as well.”

“Is—”

Alves preempted Lu’s question: “None of the CSC are thralls.”

“Hacking, bugging, remote viewing…” Modhwadia mumbled.

Lu eventually sat back down.  “Is that all we know?”

Alves nodded: “The diviners were particularly vague and tight-lipped.”  He grimaced and turned away from Lu and Modhwadia.  “They did… imply that the aspect isn’t hostile, but it seems paranoid and cornered.  It’s probably rather old, and we—no, STNR—may have met it before.  Oh, and it’s also a collective, not a hive.”

A minute passed before Modhwadia broke the ensuing silence: “Beyond the standard problems, how is this relevant to us?  Or does the Congress want us to organize a physical search?”

“No, they do not.  While no order has been given, they feel it unnecessarily risks provoking the gestalt.”  Alves turned back to face the other generals.  “But Greene thinks the gestalt knows things about the Blight.  STNR, the PLA, and the KOD disagree.”

Comprehension dawned on Lu and Modhwadia.

“I’ve been ordered to search for it.  Operational Commander Greene, while acknowledging that your superiors disagree with his assessment, hopes you will take the initiative to do the same.”


End file.
